Page 6 of Ace of Shadows
“I… I’m sorry, who are you? What… what is this about?”
“I’m Carl, that’s Joseph. We’re detectives investigating the plane crash that killed almost everyone… except you.”
Except me?
My mouth falls open while the machine beside me betrays just how fast my heart’s started to race. “I… me?”
“And a handful of others,” Carl says nonchalantly. “But passengers don’t really count, do they? They’re not the ones with knowledge of the planes and the flight routes and all that stuff, right?”
Everything out of his mouth might as well have been in another language with how little sense he’s making. “I don’t understand.”
“It might be the drugs,” Joseph says with a yawn. “A hospital like this is sure to have the fancy fucking drugs.”
“Let me lay it out for you.” Carl leans closer and the stale scent of cigarettes suddenly enters my nose. “A lot of people died and you survived. It’s our job to find out how that happened. Now, we’re not the ones in charge of finding out how the plane went down, but we do have to find out what we can about the people on board. So I need you to tell me everything you remember.”
“I don’t… I’m sorry, you’re not making any sense. Wasn’t it an accident? These things… these things are always accidents, aren’t they?” It has to be. There’s no one way someone could cause an entire plane to crash like that, could they?
“You tell us,” says Joseph.
Slowly, with trembling words and a still burning throat, I detail everything I remember about the turbulence, but halfway through explaining how I knew the plane was really in danger, with us falling out of the sky, Carl interrupts.
“What aren’t you telling us?”
I freeze and tension pulls painfully through my mind like a rubber band. “I… what?”
“We found the drugs,” Joseph says with a small smirk. “Now listen. We’ve already questioned the other survivors and ruled them out, and while there’s a small chance that those drugs could have been placed there by someone else, it’s strange that you survived. You, with knowledge of what’s on board, coupled with the suspected sabotage, paints you as our prime suspect.”
A strangled, shocked laugh bursts out of my mouth as I struggle to keep up. “I’m sorry… what?”
Carl grabs my hand and with a flick of his wrist, cold metal cuffs suddenly seal around my wrist as he handcuffs me to the bed. “We know you’re involved, Ivy. We just don’t know to what extent, and until we know everything, you’re not going anywhere.”
No, no… this is some kind of nightmare. It has to be.
My heart races faster and faster as the hot sting of tears crawls up behind my eyes. Unable to speak, I reach for the emergency button beside my bed but before I can touch it, Carl jerks it out of reach and it lands on the floor.
“No, we’re not done here.”
“What is this?” I gasp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Yes, I found the drugs. Tasha and I found them, and we were going to report them to the captain when we got into difficulty in the air, and then I woke up here! I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t understand!”
“Oh, so the plane crashedafteryour colleague found the drugs? Were you trying to cover your ass?”
“No!”
“Unless it was intentional. You wanted to crash the plane and destroy the product, and what better excuse would you have than someone else finding the stash?”
“No, that’s not?—”
“Listen here, we know what this is!” Carl grabs my forearm, jerking me forward so hard that the cuffs cling loudly on the steelframe along my bed. “Two days ago, your mother was raped and beaten, and your father was tortured and killed. You know what that sounds like? A Mob hit. A revenge hit because you fucked up and destroyed their product, so we’re your only hope of making it to the end of this week alive.”
“What?”
Carl spoke so quickly that some of the words out of his mouth don’t sound real.
“My… what?” Gazing up at him, pain erupts in my chest and a weak sob drags out of my mouth. “My mom was… my dad is… no, no, that can’t be… no, you’re lying. You’re lying!”
“We’re not lying,” Joseph states. “You fucked up and your family paid the price. We’ve seen it a thousand times before and it’s your own fault for getting in bed with the Mafia. Organized crime is never the way, Ivy, and now you’ve got to live with your mistakes.”
“No, no, no, you’re lying! You’re lying! Get out of here, get out of here! I want to see my mom! I want my mom! Get out of here!” Unimaginable pain spears through my chest as if my ribs are tearing me open from the inside. There’s no way Dad is dead. No way Mom is dead. This isn’t real.
